Saturday 26 February 2000

(Oops – forgot the first part of the day:  Just as we were packed and about to set off for Jaipur, we got chatting to a couple of English guys who have been touring India in a motorised rickshaw (their own) and are going to drive it back to the UK (and you thought that we were nuts)!  Anyhow, they’ve travelled throughout India on numerous occasions and know it very well.  We asked for their adcice on the best places to visit to make the most of having the Landrover.  As a result, we have totally reorganised our plans.  We have decided that we don’t really have enough time to visit Nepal (it is apparntly easy to get around there using public transport) so we will leave that to another time.  We headed back to the North (instead of down to Jaipur as planned)).

 The main NH24 was a bit of a nightmare – really busy with few town bypasses (it can take an hour to travel from one end of a smallish town to the other side!)  We turned off onto back roads as soon as practicable – not quite as wide as the highway, but far less traffic and equally good road surface (and no large towns)!  Down side – most signs are in Hindi (occasional milestones in English). 

We had aimed to travel to the hill station of Ranikhet but at 4ish we passed the Project Tiger office in Ramnagar.  Change of plans again – we organised to spend 2 nights at Dhikala in Corbett National Park 40km away.  Fortunately, we made it before sunset (after which driving in the park is forbidden).  The drive to the park is the nearest we’ve been to off-road driving.  It is a very scenic track, winding its way through jungle, over dry riverbeds, alongside the Ramganga River, eventually reaching the camp on the grassy plain above a reservoir.  We checked in, deposited our stuff in the Dorm and went off to watch a film about the park.